THE EFFECT OF INTRAVENOUSLY ADMINISTERED FRUCTOSE ON THE KETONE BODIES OF THE DEPANCREATIZED DOG

¹ The Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore 5, Maryland
² Firmin Desloge Hospital and St. Louis University School of Medicine, 1402 South Grand Boulevard, St. Louis 4, Missouri

The comparative effects of intravenously administered glucose, glucose plus insulin, and fructose on the concentrations of ketone bodies in the blood and their excretion in the urine have been studied in totally depancreatized dogs deprived of exogenous insulin for periods of four to ten days.

The intravenous administration of fructose without exogenous insulin is accompanied by a fall in the blood concentrations of ketone bodies. This drop in concentration continues only as long as an infused concentration gradient of fructose exists. The fall is not the result of urinary excretion of the ketone bodies. The effect observed with fructose administration is very similar to that observed with infusion of glucose plus exogenous insulin, while glucose infusion alone is accompanied by a continuing rise in ketone body concentrations in the blood. The measurement of ketone body excretion in the urine does not adequately reflect changes in the ketone body concentrations in the blood.

It is concluded that fructose in the absence of insulin is ketolytic for short periods of time when administered to complete depancreatized, severely ketotic dogs.